Palaniswami wins trust vote after the House witness violence

Saturday, February 18, 2017 Chennai

Only 11 vote against government after eviction of DMK members.

Congress stages walk out

The two day old AIADMK government led by Chief Minister Edappadi K.Palaniswami won the vote of confidence in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on Saturday after violence in the House that ended with the eviction of all the DMK members and walkout by their allies – the IUML and Congress.

From the AIADMK, 122 members voted in favour and 11 dissidents voted against the motion.

The House that met at 11am had to be adjourned twice due to pandemonium with the shouting of DMK members demanding that voting should be deferred or that a secret ballot be conducted. Speaker P.Dhanapal put the motion to vote by division and declared it passed in favour of Palaniswami.

The 11 members of O.Pannerselvam voted against the government . As soon as Palaniswami moved the motion of confidence, AIADMK dissident S.Semmalai urged the Speaker to take up a privilege notice on MLAs being kept in confinement at a beach resort. The leader of the Opposition M.K.Stalin, Congress Legislature Party leader K.R.Ramaswamy, Panneerselvam, IUML MLA Aboobucker and rebel AIADMK MLA R.Natraj demanded that the voting should not be conducted in a hurry.

Without heeding the requests, Speaker made it clear that he would abide by the Assembly Rules 19(1) and conduct the voting as per his powers.